Britain at War: Looking for boots on nuns

On the day the Munich agreement was signed I was having tea with my cousin Sir
Gilbert Acland-Troyte, MP for Tiverton in the House of Commons.

4:57PM GMT 30 Oct 2008

From the gallery I saw the crowded chamber and in due course Mr Chamberlain appeared. I remember him shuffling to his place with a piece of paper in his hand, then his famous speech “Peace in our time”. The rest is history, but with hindsight it is curious to remember how normal everything was for the next few months. I was 20 years old and quickly started a secretarial course, a Red Cross course and a gas course “just in case.”

Little did I think that within a year, war would be declared, which I heard in the Air Raid Precautions Centre in Charring Cross Rd, where I had joined the Women’s Voluntary Service.

In October 1939 I joined the Passport Control Department and found myself at Bletchley Park as a confidential secretary in the Naval Intelligence Department 9 on £3.10.0p a week plus paid billets. I was interviewed in Broadway Buildings and signed the Official Secrets Act. I was told to “report on Monday morning with my suitcase” and would be stationed somewhere in the country. My first stop was Wormwood Scrubs Prison, where all the prisoners had to be evacuated, which was being used by M.I.5, and then to Bedforshire. I worked with M.I.6 until 1944, having married in 1943.

Our department was moved to St Albans after the fall of France. Our chief always signed his minutes with a green “C”, the prototype for “M” in the James Bond books. I was involved in many interesting cases. Security was very tight and we never ever discussed our work with even our dearest friends or relations.

My sister went to work with the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park, and to this day I do not know which hut she was in. Sadly she caught tuberculosis from the unhealthy conditions in the huts and died comparatively young. Due to the tight security we were a close-knit community, and I made some life-long friends.

Related Articles

At Christmas 1939 we had a fancy dress party, some people dressing as nuns, who were much in the news at the time as German parachutists were alleged to have been dropped disguised as nuns. We were told “Always look at their feet to see if they are wearing boots.”